


Ghostlights

by Pyrosane



Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Post-Movie, Rehabilitation, i think
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 06:58:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 605
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1460143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pyrosane/pseuds/Pyrosane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Captain America never shuts up and Bucky Barnes never lets go of his phone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ghostlights

**Author's Note:**

> I went to see the Winter Soldier again before coming home to an untitled Google Doc. Hence this.

His hands are more familiar with the cold grip of a knife than they are with a phone, mainly because the latter is a first-time sort of thing. Metal edged like his arm, a screen that shows him his eyes, always round but colorless. It can do anything but kill the way a knife can, and maybe that’s what makes it so useful. With a phone, he can take flash-second memories and make them last forever, but with a knife, he can only take momentary surprises and turn them into ends. No, the winter soldier - Bucky - isn’t used to a phone, much like the way he isn’t used to seeing strange phantom smiles on a face that is his but isn’t.

Bucky’s phone will suggest Natasha before it will suggest Steve. Hell, his phone will suggest _anyone_ before it suggests Steve, because Steve isn’t (was?) someone he knows very well. Steve is pangs of guilt and confusion incised with bewilderment, a dandelion smile that Bucky forgot but has always remembered. He is all _i’m with you till the end of the line_ , something Bucky has realized (been trained) to hate. But it never helps that they meet twice a week now instead of one, and Steve always glances at Bucky faster than Bucky can glance back.

That’s why Bucky fidgets with his phone. Because he has learned that the twenty first century is nothing if not full of crutches, a fond gadget or two that lets Bucky hide in ways he has never been able to before.

That’s why Bucky never talks when Steve talks anyway, always, endlessly, like he’s afraid that if he shuts his mouth Bucky will say something and then suddenly, _impossibly_ , all of the “progress” they have made will fall back to Day no. 1, to blank legal pads and a crippling  _Bucky, you’re alright_. But maybe, just maybe, Bucky doesn't quite yet believe that he actually is James Buchanan Barnes, best friend of Steve Rogers, of the 107th and at last, his own person.

So Bucky never opens his mouth, not until several months later when he and Steve meet thrice a week instead of two, but it’s not in a silly white room that Bucky hangs on to Steve in the same way he’s been hanging on to his phone, for months now. And Steve, Steve jumps a little, but well enough for Bucky to notice and recoil. Steve replaces Bucky’s grip with his own and the touch is lingering.

The touch is intoxicating.

The touch is a mop of corn-yellow hair and Cracker Jacks at baseball stadiums, a Goldie’s gym pass for a 95 lb punk and his much bigger jerk. For Bucky, it’s a trace of flash-second memories that he never did get to capture on camera, a fatal rat-a-tat-tat of

_Steve, it’s only been two weeks, the war isn’t over-_

_Buck, it’s already been two weeks, and i’m still skinny-_

_“The United States of America has joined the Allied forces-”_

_You’re taking all the stupid with you-_

“I thought you were smaller,” Bucky hesitates. He shakes Steve off, but Steve doesn’t miss a beat before retorting, “And I thought you were dead.” There is no verve in Steve’s voice, but to be fair, there was none in Bucky’s, either. It’s nothing, only Steve Rogers and Bucky Barnes, inseparable on the schoolyard but even more so on the battlefield. It’s only Steve Rogers that Bucky recognizes for something like the first (millionth?) time, and he feels his phone in his pocket but doesn’t reach for it in the way he tries again, reaching for Steve’s hands instead.

 

 

 


End file.
